Ministry of Livestock Development to establish a chain of modern dairy farms in Sri Lanka

Colombo, 26 June, (Asiantribune.com): Ministry of Livestock Development has decided to establish a chain of modern dairy farms in Sri Lanka. The Ministry has planned to apply up-to-date technology for animal husbandry and dairy food products.

According to a survey made by the Ministry, Sri Lanka requires 60 to 70 million litres of fresh milk per annum. But at present 20% of this annual requirement is only achieved annually.

With this in view the Ministry has also decided to import and breed quality dairy animals.

Furthermore, according to the report of the Ministry of Livestock Development, the present dairy and animal feed import bill is around SLR 12.5 billion i.e. USD 112.6 million annually.

Minister R.M.C.B. Rathnayake speaking to Asian Tribune said that the Ministry will take the lead to build and operate a chain of world-class dairy farms and start building a profitable dairy industry in Southern Sri Lanka or in other designated area by the Government of Sri Lanka.

He said that the nucleus of the ‘Dairy Master Plan’ will be the Anchor Farm with 10,000 milking cows and a dairy processing plant in central Sri Lanka.

While talking to Asian Tribune, Minister Rathnayake said that he is looking for interested countries to come forward to assist by funding or else suitable investors for this envisaged project.

He said that Ministry envisages owning or managing a sizeable number of satellite farms with 1,000 cows in each farms. The Anchor Farm will act as a training centre for managers and milk operators selected to manage the proposed satellite farms.

Minister said the idle land owners can put their land to profitable use by allowing those lands for the growing of grasses required for the cows in the farms.

The Ministry has also plans to establish a commercial production of anti-bodies and colostrums extracts.

It is learnt that Colostrums is the pre-milk substance from the cow mother’s breast during the first 24 hours of lactation.

The Ministry also decided to establish a diary processing plant to process the milk from the Anchor Farm and satellite farms into pasteurized and homogenized fresh milk and yoghurt and also will plan to export ‘halal’ diary products such as yoghurt.